FAQ

Impact Engines must be led by Northeastern Faculty, who act as PIs or Co-PIs. However, faculty from outside of Northeastern or individuals from outside higher education may serve as partners, with the goal of making the proposed Impact Engine more powerful. 

• Project ideas will be considered from any discipline, college or campus.  
• Successful proposals include most of these features: 
  • Clearly describe a real-world problem and formulate a methodology to move the needle on solving that problem in under five years. 
  • Have clear milestones and metrics to measure impact on the problem. 
  • Be interdisciplinary and include faculty from two or more colleges or disciplines. 
  • Include demonstrated support from external partners or end-users (such as other academic institutions, non-profits, industry, community or governmental organizations). Additionally, proposals must describe how the proposed solution will be used by these external partners. 
  • Engage with students.

• The Impact Engine budget covers faculty and staff time, equipment and research supplies, communications and marketing costs, and other miscellaneous costs to meet project objectives, including: 
  • Research or other non-tenure track faculty hiring, PI and faculty summer salary, PI and faculty course releases 
  • Salaries for postdocs, graduate students and co-ops 
  • Salaries for technicians, individual contributors, project and/or program management support, evaluation support 
  • Communication and marketing support 
  • Space, equipment and research supplies 
  • Travel 
  • Publication costs 
  • Seed grants 
  • Participant support, such as incentives

• Teams should not focus on the size or total cost of the Impact Engine, but instead on the specific resources needed to address their problem statement.  

  Impact Engines are typically funded at one of two stages:  

  • Development Stage proposals require under $200,000 in resources and typically take less than 2 years to complete their milestones. 
  • Engine Stage proposals require more than $200,000 in resources and typically require 3-5 years to complete their milestones. 

• We encourage all Northeastern University stakeholders with an Impact Engine idea to first discuss their idea with Amy Carroll, Vice Provost for Global Impact. Please fill out this contact form to get the conversation started! 
• If the idea is promising, we will encourage the PI to complete and upload a short white paper with additional details about their idea. 
• After submitting the white paper, the PI will hear from the Impact Engine Program Team within 5-7 business days to schedule follow-up discussions. Find out more about the submission process here. 
• Once the idea has been refined and a pro-forma budget and set of milestones developed, a Provost-led senior leadership committee will determine whether to take the proposal to the University President for review. 

• College Deans, Associate Deans of Research, Provost Office Leadership, and—for proposals that receive support from the Provost Office Leadership Committee—the University Senior Leadership Team. 

• Proposals are reviewed on a rolling basis. Teams are encouraged to reach out anytime to discuss their idea. The funding decision process is iterative with the Impact Engine team and can take a few months from initial proposal submission.  

• Like institutes, Impact Engines cut across traditional disciplines and indeed some Impact Engines may ultimately become institutes. However, while institutes represent mature areas of strength and leadership for the university, Impact Engines are nimbler and can split and merge, re-focus, and evolve in ways that were not originally imagined. In addition, Impact Engines must focus on a real-world problem or set of problems, rather than a scientific discipline or area of scholarship. 

• Non-tenure track (Research) faculty hires related to Impact Engines receive financial support from the Provost’s Office for three years at a decreasing rate. Tenure-track faculty hires are typically not part of Impact Engine proposals, however College Deans may choose to hire tenure-track faculty who work in the same field as the Impact Engine or may chose to grow a thematic area to align with an active Impact Engine. 

• Yes. Impact Engine proposals must articulate clear, measurable milestones. Progress against those milestones will be evaluated on a yearly basis and additional funding will be contingent on meeting them. 

• Yes. PIs are encouraged to seek external funding and to include these as revenue projections in their budgets.